The Randolph Freedpeople Part Two: The Legal Road to Freedom

On May 4th, 1846, the people of the Roanoke Plantation were manumitted by a court in Virginia following thirteen years of litigation.2 John Randolph, their former captor, had been partly to blame for the controversy. He drafted conflicting wills, only to recant the final written will on his deathbed.3 The first of these, written in 1819, would have granted full emancipation. The second, in 1821, made provisions for their lives beyond liberation. But in his final will, he demanded that “executors may select from among my slaves a number not exceeding one hundred, for the use of the heir, the remainder to be sold.”4 It was this last written defense of slavery that he wished to retract on his deathbed. As was required by law, a white witness was present to provide eyewitness testimony of his retraction. This would have been legally sufficient, had it not been for the protestations of John’s family and the accusations of his insanity. The underlying cause for this legal battle was in many ways the bedrock of slavery itself. Freedom represented more than just a loss of workforce. It was a direct threat to the wealth of the Randolph lineage. Enslaved people were considered property, like the 8,207 acres of productive land on John’s Roanoke plantation, or his collection of thoroughbred horses.5 These human lives were treated as a form of currency representing white affluence. Because their literacy was prohibited by 1740, the Randolph People did not produce diaries or manuscripts while in legal limbo. They remained in Virginia, but their daily experience is relatively unknown.